“Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed — in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” ~ 1 Corinthians 15:51-52.
Praise the Lord, o my soul! Even though we are heavily imbued with sin, there awaits us a time when all this shall be no more. In the interim, however, it is a battle indeed to fight flesh with spirit, to deny ourselves what we thought was our entitlement, to choose obedience over temptation, and to remember to magnify the Lord as we live day to day.
Matthew 5:48 states, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” How daunting this seems! But if Jesus were to set a standard any lower, we would be less than what we could be. Perhaps we all know we shall never attain that standard of perfection, but because we are reaching for heaven, we will try. Try we will with every morsel of human imperfection that we are. Anything less would be a compromise of the most holy faith, thus rendering it unacceptable without true conviction and repentance.
The timeless words of Apostle Paul tells of how we shall be changed, in the twinkling of an eye. Not entirely certain of what this means, I can only speculate. We will be changed into immortal beings, trading flesh for eternal spirit. But I wonder about our sinful dispositions. God has begun a good work in us and will not leave us incomplete. Will we then be made perfect in the day of Jesus Christ?
The work left to do in us, should we die before our time, or when we die, will it then be miraculously complete? Then what of the endless striving and struggles meant to make us stronger? I always wonder, how strong do we need to be? Will our growing go beyond the grave or will we enter heaven and be a part of its perfection?
I suppose these questions without answers warrant no worry. Without a goal, we would have no great purpose to be holy. And even if God finishes His work in us as easily as a flash, our lifetime of suffering would not be in vain. We would have done our best, played our part as Christian soldiers and children. We would not have done nothing, and we would have suffered with Christ, just as He suffered for us.
It is better than a life of shallow daydreams and effortlessness. We would learn nothing of the human condition, we would not feel at length the spectrum of emotion, we would not understand life as God intended, and what a waste for we are only given one earthly existence. We would experience the intricate beauties of one lifetime and embody our faith on earth in a way we cannot once we reach the place of perfection.
We will know what it is like to be fully human, and then, fully spirit and one with the Father. We will taste a little of what the Lord Jesus experienced when He brought Himself down to His creation, and died for us and our sins, once and for all. We will understand the evil extent of our sins, and why, why we are who we are and who we are in Christ.
This earth may be the epitome of imperfection and destruction, but it was once pure. One day God will restore all that was lost and make everything new. For now, we are called to be more than ourselves, to be better than our circumstances, to go above and beyond all we ever knew and are inclined towards. God has placed eternity in the hearts of man, and every trial and tribulation, affords us a touch of what that is.
One day, all shall fade away. And nothing but goodness shall remain.
